Conclave

The conclave is an assembly of
all the Cardinals of the Catholic Church which privately selects the
next Pope in the event of a vacancy.

The term "conclave" can also
be used to refer to any private assembly, although its primary
connotation is to the Papal conclave.

Papal Conclave

A papal election is
the method by which the Roman Catholic Church fills the office of
Bishop of Rome, whose incumbent is known as the Pope, the head of the
Church. The electors, when locked together in a room for this
purpose, form a conclave, (from the Latin cum clave
"with a key") which they are not permitted to leave until a
new Pope is elected. Conclaves have been employed since the Second
Council of Lyons decreed in 1274 that the electors should meet in
seclusion. In modern times they have been held in the Sistine Chapel
in the Palace of the Vatican. The 1492 conclave was the first to be
held in the Sistine Chapel, the site of all conclaves since 1878.

Since the year 1061, the
College of Cardinals has served as the sole body charged with the
election of the Pope, the source of the term Prince of the church
for cardinals. In earlier times, members of the clergy and the people
of Rome were entitled to participate, in much the same way as the
laity helped determine the choice of bishops throughout the Catholic
Church during this early period. Popes may make rules relating to
election procedures; they may determine the composition of the
electoral body, replacing the entire College of Cardinals if they
were to so choose.

Since the Apostolic Age, the
Bishop of Rome, like other bishops, was chosen by the consensus of
the clergy and laity of the diocese. The body of electors was more
precisely defined when, in 1059, the College of Cardinals was
designated the sole body of electors. Since then, other details of
the process have developed. A majority of the vote is required to
elect the new pope, which also requires acceptance from the person
elected.

List of papal elections

There have been 104
papal elections that have produced popes recognized by the
Catholic Church as legitimate, and 6 modern
anti-papal elections producing antipopes widely recognized as
legitimate successors in our times that, although recognized by the
world as legitimate successors of Peter, are not. There was no fixed
process for papal succession before 1059 and popes were often
selected with substantial secular involvement, if not outright
appointment. Since the promulgation of In nomine Domini
(1059), however, suffrage has been limited to the College of
Cardinals.

Papal elections since 1276
have taken the form of papal conclaves, which are elections that
follow a set of rules and procedures developed in Ubi periculum
(1274) and later papal bulls; observance of the conclave varied until
1294, but all papal elections since have followed relatively similar
conclave procedures.

Epikeia is needed for getting the next pope

When there is no pope and
hence the Holy See is vacant, the current law decrees that cardinals
must elect the next pope:

Constitutio
of Pope Pius XII, Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, December 8,
1945: “The right to elect the future Pope belongs solely to the
Sacred College of Cardinals to the exclusion of any intervention by
any other civil or ecclesiastical authority or dignity, or even by a
General Council, which, if it is in session at the time, is ipso
facto suspended on the death of the Pope until reconvened by the new
Pope.” (AAS 38, 1946, p. 76.)

The law that decrees how
the Catholic Church fills the vacant Holy See with a pope is a
disciplinary law that can and has changed. By a past law a pope
appointed his successor. And by another past law Catholic bishops,
priests, and laymen elected the next pope:

Catholic
Encyclopedia, Pope, 1907: “A brief historical review will
show how the principle of election by the Roman Church has been
maintained through all the vicissitudes of papal elections. St.
Cyprian tells us in regard to the election of Pope St. Cornelius
(251) that the comprovincial bishops, the clergy, and the people all
took part in it: ‘He was made bishop by the decree of God and
of His Church, by the testimony of nearly all the clergy, by the
college of aged bishops [sacerdotum], and of good men’
(Ep. Iv ad Anton., n. 8). And a precisely similar ground is alleged
by the Roman priests in their letter to Emperor Honorius regarding
the validity of the election of Boniface I (A. D. 418; P. L., XX,
750).”

Therefore epikeia can be
used in regard to the laws that govern the method by which the
Catholic Church fills the vacant Holy See with a pope because they
are disciplinary laws. During these days of the Great Apostasy, there
are no cardinals. Consequently, the current law on electing the next
pope is impossible to observe. If it were observed, there would be no
way to fill the vacant Holy See with a pope because cardinals are
required to elect the pope, and the pope is required to make
cardinals. Hence epikeia must be used to get the next pope. In using
epikeia, one must first seek an older law that can be observed and
use that law to fill the vacant Holy See with a pope.

In regard to the current
law, the dilemma of the possible loss of all the cardinals was
addressed and the solution was to observe extinct laws by which the
whole Church or the Roman clergy would then elect the next pope:

Francisco
de Vitoria (1480-1546), De Potestate Ecclesiae: “If by
any calamity, war or plague, all Cardinals would be lacking, we
cannot doubt that the Church could provide for herself a Holy Father.
Hence such an election should be carried by all the Church and not by
any particular Church. And this is because that power is common and
it concerns the whole Church. So it must be the duty of the whole
Church.”

Catholic
Encyclopedia, Pope, 1907: “Should the college of cardinals
ever become extinct, the duty of choosing a supreme pastor would
fall, not on the bishops assembled in council, but upon the remaining
Roman clergy. At the time of the Council of Trent Pius IV, thinking
it possible that in the event of his death the council might lay some
claim to the right, insisted on this point in a consistorial
allocution.”

During these days of the
Great Apostasy when there are no cardinals, one way to get the next
pope is by the Roman clergy electing the pope. Another way is by the
Catholic clergy, gathered from around the world, electing the next
pope. If there are no Catholic clergy, then only God Himself can
choose the next pope in a miraculous way.

We live in the time predicted by the ancient Fathers,
St. Francis de Sales, and others when the Church, for a time, would
seemingly disappear. Only God can resolve this situation, when and
in whatever manner He chooses.

The
Heresies of Francis I, Benedict XVI, John Paul II, John Paul I, Paul
VI, and John XXIII – Antipopes of the Vatican II Counter Church

There
have been 260 valid popes in Catholic history, and more than 40
antipopes (i.e., men who posed as popes but had not been truly
elected). There have been more than 200 papal vacancies (periods
without a pope). The facts available on this website (see links)
prove that the last six men who have claimed be popes – Francis
I,
Benedict
XVI,
John
Paul II,
John
Paul I,
Paul
VIand
John
XXIII,
the men who brought in Vatican II – have been and are
antipopes. We prove that they are/were manifest heretics and not true
Catholics. This section defends Catholic teaching and the teaching of
the true popes; it exposes manifestly heretical antipopes who have
been falsely posing as leaders of the Catholic Church.

Responses
to 19 of the Most Common Objections Against Sedevacantism[link
to section]-Sedevacantism
is the position that the Chair of Peter is presently vacant…
This section proves that what is said on this website is perfectly
compatible with all Catholic teachings, papal dogmas, the
indefectibility of the Catholic Church, the indefectibility of the
papal office, Christ’s promises to be with His Church, etc.

A
complete list of the 42 antipopes in Church history[link
to section]-
In Catholic history there have been 260 valid popes, starting with
St. Peter, and 42 antipopes – that is, men who claimed to be
true popes but were not… some of them reigned in Rome for
periods of time

St.
Robert Bellarmine, De Romano Pontifice, II, 30: "A
pope who is a manifest heretic automatically (per se)
ceases to be pope and head, just as he ceases automatically to be
a Christian and a member of the Church. Wherefore, he can be judged
and punished by the Church. This is the teaching of all the
ancient Fathers who teach that manifest heretics immediately lose
all jurisdiction."

St.
Francis De Sales (17thcentury), Doctor of the Church, The
Catholic Controversy, pp. 305-306 :
"Now when he
[the Pope] is explicitly a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his
dignity and out of the Church..."

St.
Antoninus (1459): "In the case in which the pope would become a
heretic, he would find himself, by that fact alone and without any
other sentence, separated from the Church. A head separated from a
body cannot, as long as it remains separated, be head of the same
body from which it was cut off. A
pope who would be separated from the Church by heresy, therefore,
would by that very fact itself cease to be head of the Church.
He could not be a heretic and remain pope, because, since he is
outside of the Church, he cannot possess the keys of the Church."
(Summa Theologica, cited in Actes de Vatican I. V. Frond pub.)

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